Although we all love 16 bit shining games, its true that the overworld sprites lack details and colors, with all walking sprites sharing the same palette. Of course the cutscenes is where the game shines . But I ask the sega genesis experts here if you think the mega drive/genesis could make a better looking shining and all the limitations of the console on the shining engine.

sure she could make far better. the Megadrive is a beast Actually no one seen megadrive limitation.Shining Force don't even use any of the tricks used by develloper to use more that 64 color(some games have 120 or even some time 180 color on screen) on screen by processor interruption and shadow Highlight).Megadrive if able to produce 3D, mode 7 effect, transparancie and far better animation than the cutscene.

even now fan programmer push the limit of the hardware

look these demos

[youtube]http://youtu.be/uk17pWvLAwI[/youtube]

[youtube]http://youtu.be/2vPe452cegU[/youtube]

[youtube]http://youtu.be/JCG6QjvTpm8[/youtube]

some expert found few time ago that tthe megadrive 2 and the last generation of megadrive 1 are able to use 128 color in same time with no tricks.beacause of the early release of the megadrive the first model of the console have a limited graphic card but it was upgraded aroud 1990 (but never used to keep backward compatibility)here is a demo using these spec[youtube]http://youtu.be/gWVmPtr9O0g[/youtube]

some other expert discovered by hacking an hidden mode on the hardware unlocking a low resolution mode but allowing to the megadrive to show 512 color on screen also with no tricks.the megadrive fanport of Wolfestein 3D use it

[youtube]http://youtu.be/-sAZWWbY4n4[/youtube]

Watermelon games (Pier Solar creators) even said that their future game for Megadrive (Paprium) would be unable to be port for the more powerful Neogeo because it use fully every aspect of megadrive hardware and the megadrive have some point were she is more power full than the Neogeo (scrolling as their is no hardware scrolling on Neogeo, every scrolling on the console is animation) and I belie them as Paprium seem more beautiful than any Beat them up for Neo Geo.

Yeah, probably the shining games dont push graphics limit because:1 - Rushed games!2 - Not so experienced programmers like the ones in Treasure .3 - the system uses ram and other resources for various units and strategy rpg elements so graphic power is left as less important.4 - Tradition of strategy rpgs: they all have small and similar graphics so camelot thought they shouldnt bother with this aspect.

What aswer you think is right? I think the number 4 is more probably, but this topic is meant to see if 3 is a valid answer.

I wish see a shining game with the same style and sprite size of Light crusader, beyond oasis or at least landstalker.

actully, the reason Shining force game are not among the best looking game of the megadrive is just they were released too early.For their time the graph were excellent.before the release of the super nintendo there was no need to push the limit of the system. and even in 1993 very few SNES games had better graph than megadrive.

the games starting to really use Shadow highlight came in 1995 (Vectorman, Ranger X, Batman & Robin, Crusader of Centy)

I don't think the 4 is the good answer because SRPG made by sega always have badass graphic for their time.

Shining force 3 and Dragonforce were amoung the best looking game on Saturn, Sakura wars 3 for dreamcast, same thing. Sakura wars 5 in 2005 was more than ok, Valkyria Chronicles in 2008 was very beautiful and Shining Blade was among the best looking game on PSP

yep, there is no surprise why Sega choose Soleil devellopers to make Shining Soul, Soul 2, Tears and Wind. They were with Climax and Gamearts the best third party RPG studio working on Sega console (they also made Linkle Liver story for Saturn)